Global Scenario

[Nupremal]

There is a slight problem with the global scenario - there does not appear to be any way for Germany to declare war on Russia that does not also put Japan at war with Russia - am I missing something?

[PowerGmbH]

No. this is a simple fact. in a Player vs Player Game this is not a problem: Simply everyone shows to be "Friendly" onthis border. The AI doesn't know about that, but maybe ther will come a solution to this one day.

[Nupremal]

I guess maybe there should be different factions and Japan should in some respects be independent of the European Axis.

However I think I like the normal Europe scenario better as you need the extra space. It is too cramped in France in the global scenario.

[Nupremal]

I thought of a way - just make Siberia another Nation.

[PowerGmbH]

Well. Space is really a Problem sometimes , for me a 1024x512 Tiles Map would have been ok...

for the Siberian idea: quite interisting option. but historically the Challenge of the Diplomatic Issues and Political Directions is REALLY difficult to copypaste to a game.

Just an example: The Military Coup in Argentinia 1943. One Party was to be elected beeing fully on UK side, the Military Coup was AGAINST UK Politics, BUT NOT simply in favour of Axis but simply "keeping neutral". Ok that's not all. USA after that tried to upgrade its Influence Sphere in South America, making a new Political Issue where the "neutralists"-Pro Axis where fought down by US influenced "Pro-US" Forces.

that is not the only Country where the Political Implication needs to be differenciated.

China, Russia, Finnland, Vichy France, all these are not simply one or the other side.

Consider i.e. that UK and USA helped Finnland in their Winter War against USSR 1939-40....

Who is with whom, this is sometimes not so easy...

[arado234]

PowerGmbH you are right in that politics are a really hard option to add to a game.

What about the chance of Russia joining Germany(or atleast western Russia)when Germany attacked?Alot of the Russians felt the Germans(what a mistake)were liberators.I think some of the politcal options that could have happened for real are to big of a game breaker to add .The one I just mentioned is one of them.

Just imagine if the Brits.and the Amis did help Finland.Would that have driven the Russians more to the German camp?Maybe the Russians get real pissed and attack Iran and go seize the MidEast oil fields.Who Knows.So many options.

[Nupremal]

I think you can keep it within some reasonable parameters, you can't cover everything.

[geozero]

This is where it would help to be able to set up "factions". In HOI2 they tried this but limited to three faction parties (Allies, Axis and Commintern). That helped, but did not resolve the issue. It would be nice to allow several more such as the aforementioned "neutralists" of Argentina. In fact other countries tried to stay neutral or would not side with one or other. This is the case with Nationalist Spain. Of all the European countries it would have made sense that they would have joined the Axis, but they did not. Same with Turkey... they could have avenged themselves from all their losses after the Great War.

We could go on and on and debate this. But there is some good reasoning behind these ideas, and I think that if there was a way to model some factions like this:

Pro-Allies (U.S., U.K., France, etc)

Pro-Axis - (Germany, Italy, Japan)

Pro-Communist (USSR, part of China under Mao control, etc)

Neutral Allies (Benelux countries, other smaller Euro countries, etc.)

Neutral Axis (Spain, Turkey, etc)

Isolationist Neutral - ? Siam, Argentina, Brazil, other So. America countries...

Then also we'd have to deal with Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia that were taken over after the fall of Poland.

With several factional "spheres of interest" these could change from one to another by the main playable countries expending diplomatic "points". This was covered somewhat by an old PC game called High Command.

Many other games have already devised ways to handle this. I wish someone would take the lead and take the best of these elements and truly make a great system so that a WW2 game could be played out much more richly and accurate, without sacrificing playability.

Just my 2 cents...

[Hubert Cater]

Good news is that we have a framework in place for the planned Global Conflict release that I believe will resolve most of these issues... and I should mention that you can thank PowerGmbH for this as well

[geozero]

Great news Hubert.

[Retributar]

Yes!!!...this is indeed 'Heatening-News!'.

BUT!!!...how can it be possible to implement this project_on this scale_with such a restricted Map-Size?. We can only get Europe & portions of Africa & the U.S.A. into it!.

[PowerGmbH]

Everything is Possible,if you have the will to realize it.

(only Historically it was impossible for Axis to win even if they had the will...but we give them a chance this time, some cheating is necessary here in a Global Map, i.e. the poor Italians need some pepper else they'll never have a single unit winning a single combat:-))

[Nupremal]

well using 256x128 - and of course you could always go larger - you can do it. My plan, which I am not sure it could be off from the isometric view and won't be exact scale, but that is impossible anyway unless you implement a globe (look at google earth - this is what we need in the future - play on an actual sphere):

North to South = 128 = 70 latitude to -58

East to West:

From 0 meridian to 20 west, then double scale to 180 west = 20 squares + 80 (100)

From 0 meridian to 80 east, then double scale to 100 east = 80 + 10 = 90

from 100 to 150 east, then double to 180 = 50 + 15 = 65

Net 256 (there is an extra one on the edge somehow - did it in Excel since it has, interestingly enough, 256 maximum columns)

so now you can locate any city:

lets pick Irkutsk in Russia = 52 North, 104 East, that puts it at coordinates 196,18 on our map. Then I am fitting in the rest as best I can by map.

It is not to scale because the longitudes stretch vs latitudes - each degree latitude is 69 miles. The longitides are smaller the further north you go.

By doubling in areas where there is mostly ocean and non-combat areas, I can get more room in the combat areas. Even so, Europe looks kind of small in the grand scheme. So far I like how the map scales. I admit it may not match the isometric perspective quite the way it was intended but I prefer the playability and it looks ok to me.

[SeaMonkey]

Good job Nupremal, I like the way you think. Indeed most of Western Hemisphere is inconsequential, all you really need is the coasts and a hundred miles inland.

Same for the middle of USSR, western China, both nonessential. Somehow you will need to incorporate India and SE Asia. Just put them on a loop into the Indian Ocean and across the Hump.

[Nupremal]

hmmm... I could make Europe larger by cutting out some areas, but then the easy position reference is harder to do.

Let me ask you - the map does not have wrap-around? You need to manually add loops? There are also no land loops, only sea?

[SeaMonkey]

No wrap, but both loops(land and sea).

[Nupremal]

How do I do a land loop? I don't recall seeing it in the terrain tiles but I did see the sea arrows. Is it under another layer like roads or something?

[SeaMonkey]

Maybe you're right Nupe. I haven't had a chance at home to open the editor....too much work lately. Seems I remembered a land loop for PDE.

Nevermind, perhaps you can make a large lake in a land area and put the sea loop in it. Experiment!

[Nupremal]

I have a new idea. I am planning to split the map into essentially the two theatres. On the west map edge, you can travel to the east by realistic routes:

1) Panama - short loop

2) The cape - long loop

3) USA - probably a loop via the great lakes - also this way when the US builds it will generally commit the units towards the Pacific or the European theatres, though the transfer options will be allows of course.

The West will have a scale as close to the 50 miles as I can manage. This will cover from the US East coast through to the Urals or so. In the East, Russia will be connected by land but in other areas I will have sort of an empty neutral separation of the map. Russia will have something to block out the missing area except say one spot for the trans-siberian RR so they can send stuff back and forth operationally if they want to. Driving/walking won't be very practical anyway but they can if they have to through say that 1 square. Siberia will be a russian ally so it activates independently and the siberian units can be added depending on events, say to europe or siberia, something like that. I don't know if I can have russian units appear in an ally, is that possible? Maybe they will just be "annexed" - and the russian units will then appear.

There will be sea loops via suez and the persian gulf too of course. This western map halve will be a different scale, so the bottom part of the world will be at a different level than in the Pacific, so the loops are important.

I also think a skew 45% left will be better than a stretch, which distorts the distances somewhat. I am not 100% sure - but it seems to me if you do a 200% horizontal stretch (or 50% vertical - same effect) - you distort the distances wrt the vertical plane - am I missing something? The skew will let me use more of the north/south parts of the map for play. It seems to me if you have 360 degrees of circumference as 256 squares - then having 180% as 128 squares makes the distances match, otherwise your north-south movement doubles.

In the East I will try to squeeze in from the far east to the west coast of the USA so the scale will be higher. I will also try to make the islands bigger - I am not going to finish that part until the new pacific expansion is ready.

[geozero]

Is this global map a mod or the one that comes with game? I'm heading over there right bnow to d/l the game...finally!!!

[Nupremal]

There is a global map for the normal game but I am making one myself. It actually is turning out well now I have had to re-evaluate how to do it many times but I finally have it now. Turns out I probably will have the map edge in the Pacific so I may only have to use sea arrows anyay.

I decided I had to go back to latitude/longitude as I originally had it and it works pretty well once I look at the maps right. I am scaling it as follows:

Latitude = 70 North to 58 South, 1 square each (69 miles) = 128 squares - so my map is going to be 2x the height of the current world map.

Longitude will not be as accurate because it changes. At the equator it is 69 miles but that gets smaller the farther away you get. Unless someone does a globe map one day, which in my view is a great idea, that will be hard to change. So, I decided to emphasize the important areas for WW2:

-10W to 50E will be 1 degree = 1 square. This makes Europe bigger, which it needs to be or it is too small for maneuvers.

100E to 150E (China and Japan and SE Asia) will be the same

everywhere else - Atlantic, Americas, Pacific and some of the interior of Asia - will be 2 degrees each.

I have not yet worked out islands but plan to do what Hubert did - he made islands larger, so I will have to do the same. Not sure of how yet but I should be able to manage it. I also need his new game because I want to use all his Japanese units and graphics I am sure they will have.

Since I need 6 major powers have to use the PDE editor. I will have Japan replace France as a major power - France will be a minor (since they surrender pretty fast anyway). That will take a bit of copy and paste for the flags and graphics but that is allowed for in the game.

The fun part will be lots of events, decisions and scripts and making sure they work

[SeaMonkey]

I would concentrate on the Map for the present awaiting PTO.

Once you've got a working model of the map create a pool of units for testing and start writing your scripts and decision events to assess their applicability.

The OOBs are simple, lots of documentation available.

The real time consumer is the balancing, like building a house, goes pretty quick at first but the finish work is a bear.

[Nupremal]

Is it possible to create an annexation event triggered by an opposing DoW that takes place immediately? I want to have Siberia as a minor that gets annexed by Russia if Japan declares war - it would be best if that happens immediately.

[geozero]

Don't want to steer too far OT. But...

So as I read this...SC2 Blitz+WAW does not give you the ability to include Japan and other countries?

Will post other comments and concerns separately...

[SeaMonkey]

Sure it does, SC2 1.08 has a world campaign version IIRC.

This is not in the WaW expansion.

Understand that WaW and PDE are both separate expansions based upon the SC2 platform, you need the SC2 foundation to play either or both.

SC2 PTO will be stand alone.